British director Steve McQueen has succeeded where Steven Spielberg notably failed and made a masterful film about slavery that will likely stand as the definitive work on the subject.

Like Spielberg’s Amistad, 12 Years A Slave is based on a true story but the comparison ends there. Amistad was a worthy courtroom drama about a mutiny aboard a slave ship that unfolded with stately import.

It was about a Major Historical Event and featured Major Historical Figures, including former US president John Quincy Adams, played by Anthony Hopkins.

However, 12 Years A Slave tells an almost entirely forgotten story about a complete nobody, Solomon Northup, whose fate was of no historical significance at all.

Yet, as such, it tells us far more about slavery, and brings home its horrors more effectively than any previous picture, including Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant but deranged Django Unchained, a film created above all to entertain.

It does not seem right to describe 12 Years A Slave as entertaining exactly but it is absorbing and fascinating and appalling and full of unforgettable moments, albeit not of the inspiring kind.

It is a survival story but not in the rousing, triumph-of-the-human-spirit fashion Hollywood favours, which is presumably why the picture was made outside the studio system and largely by Brits.

Directed with stark realism and a kind of spare detachment that makes the unfolding horrors even more shocking, it is a picture about the “slave experience” as endured by one man for whom the horrors of slavery are as alien as they are to us, the audience.

It is this perspective that makes the story unique and also uniquely accessible and intriguing. It is a remarkable tale but one with awful fascination for a modern audience because Northup, at the start, is a man like us; a free man.

He was not born into slavery but sold into it after being kidnapped. As we witness at the start, he is a well-educated and cultured African American family man living freely in New York in 1841 where slavery is outlawed.

He makes his living as a violinist and one day is approached by two men in the park who claim to be travelling musicians. They invite Northup to accompany them to Washington for a concert. With his family out of town and keen for the extra cash, Northup accepts.

After a celebratory post-concert booze-up Northup awakes to find himself in chains, in a dank cell.

It is the start of his hellish descent into the dark underbelly of America and humanity and it is all the more chilling for starting in the heart of democracy.

What follows plays almost like a horror movie as Northup is abducted into a living hell from which there is seemingly no way out

In one striking shot the camera climbs up from Northup’s cell window to reveal the Capitol Building a mere stone’s throw away. It is a reminder that slavery continues in the heart of our cities today, right under our noses as recent news stories here and in America testify, giving added resonance to Northup’s story.

What follows plays almost like a horror movie as Northup is abducted into a living hell from which there is seemingly no way out, the dark shadow of slavery casting all hope and human kindness from the gruesome kingdom in which he finds himself: the South.

It is a world where even God is your enemy as the Bible is invoked to justify owning slaves, in particular by Northup’s nemesis, vicious, unstable cotton plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a dangerously uneducated ogre who made me think of the Taliban.

Northup ends up as Epps’s “property” after being first sold to a relatively benign plantation owner, Ford, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Yet he becomes too hot to handle after antagonising Ford’s sadistic right-hand man Tibeats (Paul Dano), breaking the cardinal rule of survival: keep your head down.

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However, surviving means not just staying alive but keeping your sanity and self-respect, at least for Northup who is determined not to fall into despair like most of his fellow slaves. “I don’t just want to survive, I want to live,” he says with aching poignancy.

It is not just his lost freedom he has to conquer but the demolition of his entire identity as he is renamed Platt Hamilton by his abductors, a “runaway slave from Georgia”. He is also compelled to suppress all evidence of his education and learning.

How he succeeds (“triumphs” would be too strong a word) is the subject of the drama, a riveting external and internal battle for survival and his very soul. He may not be able to plot his escape as such (he is too powerless for that) but he can be master of his own mind and hope for freedom even if it seems nigh impossible.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is outstanding in what is a surprisingly unshowy role, communicating far more with his haunted, expressive features than he does with words. There is little dialogue because there is very little communication, even among the slaves.

This is not a picture about the power of friendship and human bonding. If Northup can barely help himself there is even less he can do for his fellow slaves, especially the attractive young Patsey (a heartbreaking Lupita Nyong’o) who has the misfortune of entrancing Epps. His obsession with her creates a hugely volatile domestic situation that ends in a twisted act of violence that demonstrates all the perversions of slavery.

You will watch it from behind your hands but McQueen’s unsparing approach, allowing the act to play out in real time, is entirely justified.

Despite the horrors on display this is not a hard film to watch, nor is it one that feels worthy or self-important. It does what great cinema should do: takes you on an extraordinary journey and makes you feel grateful to be alive.

Delivery Man feels like a rather expensive rebranding exercise for Vince Vaughn as audiences have grown tired of his fast-talking man-child schtick. Here we get a more reflective Vince growing up fast after the discovery he is father to 533 children.

His character, delivery driver David Wozniak, had rather a busy time of it as a young man in the sperm donation clinic. Now 142 of his offspring have launched a legal action to discover his identity just when his on-off girlfriend (Cobie Smulders) has announced that she is expecting.

Will David man-up to his responsibilities or continue to let everyone down? This is one of those ideas that sounds fun on paper but does not really work.